by Cheryl Bolen
Her stomach clenched with remembered pain. The knowledge that she had revealed that hidden wound to this arrogant stranger raked her spirit. She glanced at Griffin Stone. She saw no mockery; his face was suddenly solemn as he watched her.
She had not known that the voice that had tormented her could be so achingly gentle. "Come, Isabeau. I hardly think poor Lady Lianna chose to die. All the Devereauxs were of a precarious constitution, and most," he added with a wry grimace, "were of an abominable humor. There is not one of their line left save the dowager countess, and she is well past seventy."
The ghost of a smile tipped Griffin's lips. "Last I heard, the dowager was flitting about the Continent, neck-deep in revels now that that wastrel of a husband of hers has died. As for your mother, her love's death must have been a fearsome shock. And she was most delicate."
"She was the wife of Six Coach Robb! The boldest highwayman ever to ride! She should have ridden through London like a peer of the realm, daring any to speak ill of him! But instead she wept and wilted away. She didn't even watch him die. Wouldn't let me—" Beau's voice cracked, and she loathed herself for that show of weakness.
"Attend your father's hanging? Isabeau, you were a child. She could hardly have let you witness such a horror."
"I should have been there! Wanted to be! There was no one there for him—to see how bravely he met his fate. No one who loved him."
Griffin cleared his throat at her impassioned words. He reached toward her, his knuckles skimming the curve of her cheek as if in comfort. "Having you there would only have made it worse for your father."
She jerked away from him, her eyes blazing with scorn. "Bah! What do you know about it, my fine lord? What do you know about the code that rules the highroads? It is a game we play—all of us who ride—a grand masquerade full of swirling capes and sweeping plumes and rakehell courage! And in that game the size of the plunder matters far less than the style with which you gain it. We are actors upon the most dazzling of stages. And the scene at the hanging tree is our final curtain call."
"And what good is an actor's trade without an audience?" Griffin said the words slowly, peering into that pale, defiant face, eyes that were glittering green pools of pain. Instinctively he knew that Isabeau DeBurgh would fly into a rage dark enough to set Beelzebub to cowering if he mentioned her sorrow.
Yet there was something within him that longed to stretch out his hands, entangle his fingers in the riot of flame-hued curls that tumbled about her narrow shoulders. Something in those mutinously compressed lips that filled him with a sudden, intense need to soften them with a brush of his mouth.
This girl was nothing like Lianna Devereaux with her angel-gold loveliness. Yet though Isabeau DeBurgh gleamed like a too-bright sun, all fight and fire and steely defiance, Griff sensed in this woman a vulnerability so deeply hidden that he felt its tug in his own well-guarded heart.
"Isabeau." He said her name, just her name, feeling some silken web spin out from her, entangling him in something he didn't want, dared not have.
It was as if she felt it, too, sensed what was happening inside him, and those huge green eyes changed, their jewel-like brilliance misting with hope.
"Let me go." The words fell, relentless, like stones in Griff’s stomach.
"Isabeau, I—"
"You say you don't want me to hang. If you surrender me to the authorities, it will be a gibbet for me. You know what they do to highwaymen. You've seen the corpses rotting at the roadsides."
"Blast you, of course I have!" Griffin felt a sharp surge of fury, and he spun away from her. "Sweet God, who could not know—see—"
"They would send me there. A grand trophy of Bow Street. As the Devil's Flame I would be notorious enough in my own right, but when they discover who my father was..."
Griffin felt his scalp prickle as though her fear were a palpable thing. He felt his resolve waver, and was almost tempted to hurl his cloak over her, hide her from the authorities. Then he realized she was smiling faintly with satisfaction. Her green eyes held a lurking hint of smugness.
Griffin tensed, knowing that he had seen the look in those eyes before—in jewelers attempting to barter glass for diamonds, polished tin for the finest silver. And in his nephew Charles's features when the boy had been wheedling to get his way.
Griff’s jaw knotted, brows slashing low over his eyes as he glared into that wood-sprite face. The brazen chit was trying to yank him about like a puppet master's moppet upon silken strings—him, Lord Griffin Andrew Arthur Rivington Stone.
"So," he said with deceptive mildness, "you would have me open my hand and let you fly as though you were some bright-winged butterfly I had plucked from a flower?"
"Aye. Forget you ever saw me, forget my face—"
"Until I see it splashed upon a wall by some pamphleteer? Or see news of your hanging in The Spectator?"
"It will be none of your concern then!" the girl said eagerly. "You will have done all you could."
"Perhaps I should wait longer still?" Griff’s voice snapped like the crack of a whip. "Until you bungle another robbery and blast the life out of some poor innocent?"
Isabeau flinched. "I've never... would never kill anyone!"
"Nay, milady?" Griffin laughed as his hand grasped the front edges of her shirt, drawing her toward him. There was no gentleness in the curl of his arrogant lips, face bare inches from her own. "Ah, now I remember. It is all a game with you! A grand jest, is it not? Well, I regret to inform you that there are those among we 'aristocrat curs' who are fool enough to take it seriously when someone thrusts a pistol into our face!"
Griffin expected the girl to cringe from his fury, a fury from which battle-hardened soldiers had fled. But any uncertainty Isabeau De Burgh had felt a moment before had obviously disappeared. Her chin jutted out at a pugnacious angle, her flame-colored tresses a riot of glistening color—the perfect foil for the greenest, most belligerent eyes Griffin had ever seen.
"Send me to hang, then, my high and mighty lord!" She sneered, her gaze raking his fine clothing in scorn. "For next time I go raiding, I might be tempted to blast whoever lurks within the coach—rather than be tortured by the whining of an old woman the likes of you!"
"You little witch!" Griff gritted his teeth against the urge to wring that graceful white neck. "I should—"
"Should what, my beneficent lord? All-powerful, so bloody wise. I await your verdict with bated breath!"
Griffin glared down into her face, feeling as though he were a peregrine being attacked by a sparrow. He had to crush the incongruous surge of laughter he felt building in his chest. "I should have damn well stayed in America!" he snapped. "The savages there were far preferable company to what I'm finding here."
"Then go back! I hope they take your bloody scalp! I hope they roast you upon a spit! I hope you—"
"You needn't elaborate further. I have a most vivid imagination." Griffin loosened his hold on her, astonished that this woman—that any woman save his formidable grandmother—had been able to break through his shield of lazy amusement to fire his temper. "But since I did not have the good sense to fall beneath some Iroquois's lance, I fear I need to find another solution to this coil. I can hardly turn Lianna Devereaux's daughter over to Bow Street. And I most certainly cannot allow you to go on terrorizing unwary travelers."
"It is my life! I do as I please!"
"Not anymore, mistress blackguard." Griffin reached up, tangling his fingers in her hair, forcing her to meet his steely gaze. "You are mine, Isabeau De Burgh, body and soul. A cursed millstone slung about my neck, whether we will it or no."
"Pompous swine! I won't be bludgeoned into obedience!"
"Ah, but you will, though it might send us both to Bedlam. You will come to Darkling Moor. And you'll stay there until I decide what the devil to do with you."
"I will not!" Beau cried, very real alarm whirling inside her. "You cannot make me!"
"Would you care to lay a wager upon that, my l
ady? You will do as I bid you—whatever I bid you from this moment on. If not, I will hurl you into Newgate with no more thought than I would give to casting away an irksome neckcloth."
For the first time he saw the girl falter. "You would not dare."
"Try me, milady," he said in arctic tones. "I am not a patient man."
"Nay, you are a—"
"You will leave off your unflattering appraisal of my less-than-admirable qualities. It is most unseemly in a lady of substance."
"I'm no bloody lady, you thrice-cursed dog!"
"Aye, I vow you're not! But you will endeavor to act like one when you are in my presence! And the first thing I command you to do is bloody well stop swearing! My grandmother, the dowager duchess, will not tolerate—"
The words died upon Griffin's lips as a crystalline image formed in his mind. An image of the haughty, steel-spined pillar of the nobility, Lady Judith, confronted with this snarling, flame-tressed hoyden.
A slow smile spread across his face, and he felt laughter rumbling deep in his chest. Griffin flung his head back, surrendering to it, until tears of mirth flowed down his cheeks, and Isabeau DeBurgh gaped at him as though he had at last succumbed to madness.
Chapter 5
The man was insane. Isabeau scrunched into the corner of the lurching coach, straining to keep from bumping the long masculine thigh stretched out negligently beside her. Time and again she had heard whispers regarding the strange humors of aristocrats. She'd often heard that generations of interbreeding had made the nobility's blood so thin that their sanity snapped. Yet until now she had never set much store by the tale. Outwardly Lord Griffin Stone seemed to carry only the finest traits of his ancestors. But Isabeau knew full well that she was in the hands of a madman.
She glanced at the profile angled away from her: the straight, chiseled nose, nostrils flared with just a touch of haughtiness, the mouth full, sensual, bracketed with lines carved by laughter.
Despite herself, Beau could not crush a stirring of admiration. He would swash a fine buckle upon the High Toby, were he so inclined. It was a pity he was merely a nobleman, encumbered by society's strictures.
Yet from what she had witnessed, Beau knew Stone was capable of any irreverence. The man was an enigma that infuriated and intrigued... and terrified.
Bah! Beau scorned herself inwardly. What pudding-pated foolery! She had thought herself above such nonsense. Still there was danger in the man who lounged beside her, the graceful, latent power of a panther sunning itself upon the edge of a cliff. Drowsing, true, yet ready to attack anyone foolish enough to pass beneath.
Beau couldn't stop the chill that prickled the back of her neck, her gaze stealing again to Stone's countenance.
During the two days her wound had kept them confined at the inn Griffin Stone had been given to odd moods. He had alternately brooded and laughed, paced the floor and jested, scolded her roundly and then lounged in his chair, teaching her to play chess as though he would be content to remain there forever.
Whenever Beau had attempted to bait him, to enrage him to the point that he must let her go, he had merely gotten a strange look in his eyes and tried to strangle his laughter.
Beau drew the folds of her newly acquired mantle closer about her shoulders. There could no longer be any doubt about her plight. She was in the clutches of a bloody Bedlamite.
"Is your wound paining you?" His question startled Beau out of her thoughts. "Or are you merely sulking because we left behind that man-crusher of a horse you're fool enough to ride?" His tone was so solicitous she wanted to scream. Instead she merely cast him her most fearful scowl and scooted further away upon the narrow seat.
He feigned a wounded expression. "I promised you earlier that I would not have the beast sent off to the Tenderers as long as you behave yourself. I've been most generous considering the trouble you've put me to already."
"I'd like to put you to a deal more trouble!" Beau snapped, seething beneath his amused gaze. "I'd like to—"
Stone gave a mocking shudder. "Such a hideous face you are pulling!" he said. "If you do not take care, it will freeze thus, and you'll spend the rest of your life frightening small children."
"There is nothing wrong with my face that your falling off some battlement would not cure."
"You may well have an ally in that quest once we reach Darkling Moor." His white teeth flashed into a grin so lazily sensual it could melt the most frigid of hearts.
"What? Have you abducted other women and chained them up in your accursed castle?"
"I regret to say that you will be the first prisoner we've held there since Cromwell. I can only hope that my ancestors have left some diverting trinkets about. Thumbscrews. Iron maidens. I have read that they had metal instruments called 'shrew's muzzles' to leash feminine tongues that grew too sharp." Griffin raked fingers through his hair, and the rich, dark strands tugged free of the ebony ribbon that bound them at his nape. "Of course, I fear that was just idle talk, for if such things had still existed, I am certain my poor grandfather would have put one to good use."
"Your grandfather? No doubt he had the same foul temperament you do, and your grandmother had no choice but to defend herself."
Beau started as Griffin's laugh turned cold, his lips suddenly thinning. "Judith Stone has more defenses than a blasted fortress, and she possesses a wit so withering it could make half the king's army flee for shelter. No doubt the two of you will get on famously." His voice was bitter, and Beau was suddenly uncomfortably aware of how warm his voice had been moments before.
He was her tormenter, her jailer, and she despised him. Yet he was also the man who had whiled away the endless afternoons in the inn room by teaching her chess. In fact, he'd taught her with far more patience than Jack had shown when instructing her in swordplay. And when she had stolen his rook Stone had smiled at her, and he had been almost tolerable—for a puffed-up popinjay.
She cocked her head to one side to peer into his face, but he had turned away, watching the verdant English countryside.
"If your grandmother is such a shrew, why drag yourself across an ocean to endure her company?" Beau asked. "Do you take pleasure in torturing yourself?"
"Only with red-haired witches who fling themselves upon my sword. As a rule I am wiser about avoiding family disturbances. But this time there was no escape for me." A sigh breached his lips, and he paused, his voice dropping low. "My brother died."
"Oh, aye. I remember now." Beau faltered. "I read about it in The Spectator. I didn't mean to—"
"To bring up painful memories?" Griffin turned toward her. The face that could be so disarming and boyish suddenly seemed terribly old. It was like the face of an eager young knight who had battled far too many dragons, only to discover that the enemy he sought lived within his own breast. "How now, Mistress DeBurgh, I didn't know you possessed such a soft heart."
Beau smiled broadly. "Jack claims it goes hand in hand with my soft head. But my tongue is sharp enough, and my will stubborn enough to make up the losses."
"I can attest to that." The laugh lines deepened about his mouth. "This Jack, he must be a wise man. Is he your husband? Your lover?"
Beau felt her cheeks burn and her denial burst out too hastily. "Nay. He is but a friend. A good friend who taught me all I know."
"Highway robbery?" Griffin scowled. "What kind of a scoundrel would teach such a trade to an innocent girl?"
"One that didn't have any other choice." Beau couldn't keep a self-satisfied smile from her lips. "I duped him into it, you see."
"You stowed yourself beneath his saddle? Tucked yourself into his pocket?"
"I beat him in a game of dice. First, I won his favorite brace of pistols. Then I wagered them against his promise to take me on a night raid. Never, in anyone's memory had Jack lost twice in one evening's wages, so he felt quite safe, I am sure. He turned pure purple when I beat him again."
"I can well imagine."
Beau smirked. "Of course, I k
new I would win from the beginning."
"Confident, were you?"
"No. Shameless. You see, the dice were weighted."
Griffin gave a reluctant laugh. "You were that determined to learn to be a thief?"
"A highwayman. There is a vast difference. And Jack is the boldest of them all, save my father. Maybe you have heard of Jack even in those barbaric colonies you come from. It is said that Gentleman Jack Ramsey is the greatest swordsman in all England."
Griffin grinned, cuffing her gently upon the chin. "If that is true, my fine rogue, it is evident he lacked much as your teacher."
"I fear it was my own fault. I... er... I am a trifle short on patience at times. Given to fits of temper."
"Surely not!" Griffin's eyes widened in feigned disbelief.
"I know it will be hard for you to believe." Beau found herself giving him an answering smile. "But one day, when things had been going particularly poorly, I..." Her voice trailed off for a moment. "Jack had this sword he was inordinately proud of. Some Spanish thing, all silver, and—well, I got angry and slammed it into the side of a wall."
The nobleman shuddered visibly. "You slammed a Toledo sword into a wall?"
Beau shrugged. "I could not see what all the fuss was about. It could not have been very well made, for it snapped in two like a piece of kindling."
"It is a wonder you are still alive! Remind me never to let you near my blade." His fingers trailed lovingly over the dress sword he wore at his waist. "William gave me this on my eighteenth birthday, and he nearly made me vow in blood that I would"—pain flickered across those arresting features—"would not be careless."
Silence drifted between them, and Beau squirmed, uneasy at their confidences and his palpable sorrow. The chaise jarred over a rut. Pain pulsed within Beau's shoulder, then mercifully faded. She felt a need to say something comforting, something wise, soothing, as Molly would, but she lacked her friend's ability to salve inner wounds.